Seedling Magazine Issue #3 - Feb | March 2019

system. We also have a daughter now, and it seems that our
choice will suit her too. Allegra is four and is also happy
and healthy and learning without school. You can read more
about how we home educate in this blog post.
Why we chose home education
I think I was most attracted to home education because it
allows my children to learn at their own pace, and to follow
their interests rather than what someone else tells them is
important. We follow a relaxed approach called
Unschooling or Natural Learning, so we don’t use
curriculums or schedules. We do use some resources as
they’re appropriate for the kid’s learning, and we seek to
support their ideas and interests with further relevant
information and experiences that they might like and
benefit from.
I love following their current passions and seeing how
many branches of learning they cover very naturally. It’s
amazing! For example, Dante was really into Star Wars last
year, and along with watching the movies and reading many
books about the series, he sought activity books based on
Star Wars (practicing writing, reading and math within), as
well as drawing and coloring characters from the series,
playing Star Wars apps and board games, learning about
space with some great conversations and YouTube clips,
and building Star Wars lego. It’s fun to follow a theme and
it’s doesn’t need to be forced upon kids; it’s a very natural
progression of learning.
life skills and the development of empathy, kindness and
other positive character traits), and to facilitate family
travel. We knew from the beginning that travelling would
be one of the best experiences we could give our children,
and home education seemed like the best choice to enable
us to travel often and for long periods.
Our worldschooling adventures
We officially began worldschooling in 2017 with a fourmonth
trip to South East Asia. Before then we took many
shorter trips within Australia with the kids, so they would
slowly become familiarized with travelling. We have taken
Dante to Queensland, South Australia and Byron Bay, and
camped at Mungo National Park when he was three. We
also spent a week in the snow at Mount Buller when
Allegra was one, and two weeks in steamy Kununurra,
Western Australia when she was two. We decided we
didn’t want to travel overseas while she was still in
nappies/diapers, so once the timing was right for her and
for Anthony’s business, we rented out our home and left for
Asia.
He’s quite obsessed with Minecraft at present and similar
patterns are occurring; he’s also doing his own very
thorough research. Dante has learnt how to research online
and also uses some books he got for Christmas to enhance
his Minecraft worlds and test new features ­­ all by himself.
One of the key benefits of homeschooling recognized by
universities is the ability of students to research and take
control of their learning independently. I can see why, after
watching my son learn these skills at eight.
The other reasons I had for choosing home education
include avoiding competitiveness and bullying at school,
having the opportunity to cover a greater range and depth of
learning than school can provide (especially very practical
Voluteering at a turtle conservation project
Allegra had recently turned three when we arrived in
Malaysia, and Dante turned seven while we were there. We
spent two months exploring Peninsular Malaysia, including
one week of volunteering together at a turtle conservation
project on Tioman Island which was amazing. We soon
learned that travelling from place to place every couple of
days was too much for us all, and adjusted our travel style
to include a week or more at each destination. It’s much
better for our health and the planet’s health to travel slowly,
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